


It's a desert in my heart (and I know where to hide)

by theclaravoyant



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bonding Over Backstory, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Mild Angst, Mostly Canon Compatible/UA, Set approx 2x08
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-03
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-26 06:37:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13852137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theclaravoyant/pseuds/theclaravoyant
Summary: Fitz tells Skye about his encounter with her father in the field, and it leads to a discussion of parental legacy, who we are, and the hopes of what we might become.





	It's a desert in my heart (and I know where to hide)

**Author's Note:**

> This is the combination of several Skitz prompts, including "first kiss," "bonding over backstory, esp their dads," and "One Foot by Walk the Moon," from which the title was drawn. Please note this is a **romantic** Skitz fic, though you're welcome to prompt me platonic FitzDaisy as well (at @theclaravoyant on tumblr).
> 
> Hope you like it!

There was not much room on the old Bus beds. Not much room at all. Fortunately, this was not so noticeable most of the time – like when they were laughing or cuddling, draping themselves around each other like so many kittens. It was sometimes noticeable, but not typically uncomfortable, when they lay together like this; elbow to elbow, watching their favourite movies, or any movies, really. Tonight, though, it was both.

Fitz found his shoulders were tight. Skye kept flexing a crook in her neck. The winner of their “lets drown fear and pain in candy fluff” ballot, _Elf,_ was playing; it was one they had both seen before, but tonight they seemed to be able to enjoy neither it, nor the increasingly rare gift of each other’s uninterrupted company. Fitz, because for some reason he was tempted to bite his tongue and hold his breath and stare far to intensely at the screen and Skye because she was driven to distraction by Fitz.

“Hey.” She elbowed him – on purpose this time. “You okay?” 

“Yeah.” Fitz cleared his throat, and tried to shake off his nerves. He failed. “Just shaken I guess.”

“From yesterday?” Skye frowned. “You know Trip is gonna be okay, right?” 

“That’s not it.” 

“ …Is there something I don’t know about?” 

She waited, watching as Fitz let out a long, heavy sigh. His eyes dropped from the screen, unseeing – or rather, as if seeing back in time. 

“You know,” he began, his voice shaky. “You know what you said the other day – ‘you look like you saw the devil out there’ – well I think… maybe, I did. Not the actual devil, obviously, but…” 

Skye squeezed his shoulder. “It’s okay. It’s scary as hell going into the field, I’m with you on that one, and watching someone do that to Trip… 

Fitz shook his head, waving her off as he tried to explain: “It’s worse than you think, Skye. Coulson didn’t want to tell you the truth but… here we are I guess. It was your dad. And he didn’t just hurt Trip, he tricked us into thinking he was helping. Turned out he was just making it so we couldn’t let go of those – those clamps or he’d die. It was bloody terrifying, ‘n not just because I was damn close to ca- cramping up and dropping the bloody things. He was so _intense,_ like he was… jealous of Coulson, or something, for being near you. Kept insisting we call you Daisy, send you ‘home,’ stuff like that.” He shuddered. “Sounded like he wouldn’t have been afraid to send all three of us home in bodybags if that’s what it’d take to get you. That man is twisted. Gives me nightmares.” 

“Me too,” Skye whispered. She hung her head, the tears in her throat silencing anything more. Fitz shut the laptop and rearranged them; making room under one of his arms so that Skye could lie across his chest. She huddled in, glad to have him to cushion her misery. There was a sour taste in her mouth, the bitter sting of naivety, for having put too much faith in the dream she’d had, of her father. She should have turned on him when he’d threatened Simmons; no good man, she thought, and certainly not one that she was interested in knowing, would hold her friends ransom like that. She should have learnt when she’d the broken picture frame, or when she’d begun to piece together the stories, or when she’d realised that her father was working with Hydra. But hope and loneliness, she knew, could be a powerful - even blinding - combination.

“Don’t beat yourself up,” Fitz assured her, gently brushing a hand up and down her back. “I’m pretty sure every kid reacts this way to learning their parent is… not all parents are chalked up to be. It’s okay. He means well, he loves you; he just doesn’t know how to express it.” 

Skye propped herself up for a moment, to look into Fitz’s eyes. “That sounds like Something.” 

Fitz flinched, barely noticeable even though she was staring right at it, and dodged the question. “I just mean, people can do a lot of messed up things if they think they’re doing them for the right reasons – like saving their daughter, for instance.” 

“Or ‘saving’ their son, by torturing him into fitting in?” Skye prompted. “You seem awfully forgiving about all this.” 

Fitz shrugged. “My mother is a very forgiving person. She doesn’t believe in bad people and neither do I. What I saw yesterday was not a good man, Skye, but maybe he was one once. Maybe he could be again. And even if he isn’t, you – you aren’t doomed to be like him. Monster isn’t in your blood, even if it is in his.” 

“Another something your mother said?” 

“Mm.” 

Skye held Fitz’s eyes for a long moment. Several breaths passed in silence, speaking to the fears she had left unspoken and the stories he had left untold. They were incomplete, the both of them, but she lowered her head back down and pressed an ear against his chest, listening to his slow and steady heartbeat as he resumed his slow and steady backrub.

“She says a lot of things, your mother,” Skye remarked. 

“She does,” Fitz agreed. “She had to. Raised me on her own – well, I mean, except for Nan. And I needed a _lot_ of advice. I was a, uh. Troubled kid.” 

“Really?” Skye looked up as best she could. 

“Oh, yeah,” Fitz explained. “I mean, not the smoking, drinking, having-sex-way-too-early kind, but I had a lot of anger issues. Used to throw a lot of stuff. I was bad at sharing. Obsessively particular. Not to mention, you know, the standard antisocial supergenius… thing.” 

Skye snorted. “Sounds like a supervillain backstory.” 

“It does, doesn’t it?” Fitz agreed, but his tone was a little too sincere for Skye’s liking. She realised then that this was the point of his story. His story of monster.

“It gets better,” he continued, “- or, well, worse for me, I suppose, once you add Dad into the mix. Origin story material, he was. A right bastard. Left when I was ten, fortunately, though I suspect that was only ‘cause Mum kicked him out. She’s never ex- ex- explicitly told me, an’ of course I was a kid at the time, but I’ve always known somehow. She did it to protect me.” 

“You really love her a lot, huh?” Skye mused. Her heart ached a little at the fondness, the longing in his voice. When was the last time he’d even spoken to his mother? Did she even know he was alive? 

“’Course I do,” Fitz swore. “She’d do anything for me. I like to think I’d do the same, push come to shove.” 

“I hope my mother’s like that.” Skye sighed. “Fairytale stuff though. I’m no Annie. You know, I don’t even know my real birthday? Sure as hell never stayed in one place long enough to find somebody willing to die for me.” 

“Well, now you have.” 

Skye sat up again, and this time his gaze did not waver. It was powerful, pure and earnest, and she knew – from experience – that he meant every word of it. Her breath caught and before she knew it she was leaning in to kiss him. His lips were soft and warm, his gentle passion breathtaking. A tingle ran down her spine as his hand slipped under her shirt and up her back, encouraging her until she pulled away for breath. 

In the dim light, his eyes were a stormy blue and hers a shimmering onyx. Skye could smell him on her breath and she treasured it even as her heart thudded in her chest, waiting for this fragile moment to fail. She waited for the panic to hit one of them like a wave – some sort of guilt, some sort of promise broken, some sort of reason why they _couldn’t_ – but her breaths kept coming in, one after the other, and Fitz smiled; lopsided, uncertain and adorable. 

“Are you—“ he began, before she interrupted:

“Don’t though, okay?”

“Don’t what? Kiss you? I…” 

“I don’t need anybody else doing any more stupid things for me,” Skye insisted. “I don’t want anybody to die for me. Ever. Least of all you.” 

“Hey, hey, it’s okay,” Fitz assured her, finding and squeezing her hand. “I wasn’t planning on it. I just meant – I’m not going anywhere. I’m in your corner. We all are; me, Jemma, Coulson, May… You have a family now. People who care about you and want the best for you. People who, I should hope, you can turn to whenever you need them, whatever the reason.” 

“People who can save me from my supervillain origin story?” Skye teased. Fitz just smiled, and brushed a lock of hair out of her face.

“It’s cute you think that,” he said, “but as far as I’m concerned, your story has always been the hero’s.”


End file.
